In Dreams
by Alarynia
Summary: Rather than have a mage in his family that would lower their ranks in the nobility, Marlowe Dumar would rather his daughter be made tranquil. His wife, a mage herself, is outraged and takes action to protect her daughter. And the only way to do that is to send her to a safer place through the fade. Little does she know what fate has in store for her daughter, Hermione.
1. Chapter 1: Safety

_9:10 Dragon_

"You're sure?" the man asked, anxiety lacing his voice, a small babe nestled securely in his stiff arms, swathed in an overwhelming amount of soft blue silk. A young boy stood at his feet, tossing small stones about to battle his boredom.

Concerned eyes looked back at him as the elf hesitated with his response. That alone was enough for his grip to tighten around the baby, a small whine of discomfort escaping her lips. "There is no doubt, Marlowe. Her ties to the fade are strong."

"Damnit!" he exclaimed, causing a startled cry to escape from where his daughter lay in his arms. "Is there anyway to remove it? Any way for her to live a normal life?"

The elf blanched, a glimmer of offense crossing his features, fingers tightening on the robes that marked him as a first enchanter. "Would you truly make your daughter tranquil? To live without the fade for her would be like asking an injured warrior to fight after he had lost his sword arm. No. I would not suggest removing it."

Red heat rose to Marlow's cheeks as he advanced on the enchanter, fierce frustration evident in his tone. "I will not have a mage in this family! Tensions are high enough as it is within Kirkwall. We're barely holding the city together as it is. A mage would just drag this family down further. The house of Dumar cannot fall any further than it already has!"

"If your family's stance within the nobility is really so important, then disown her and lay no claim to her. Send her to the circle! We would care for her as a family should there. And she wouldn't need to be made tranquil unless she does not pass the Harrowing."

"No child of mine will be common!" Marlow argued. "Everyone knows of her birth already. It would further darken our reputation if it became known that we sent our one and only daughter away. No, Orisino, I will not send her to the circle. And I will not have an apostate with my name."

Orisino glowered at him, "And I refuse to submit a newborn to the templars to be made tranquil."

"Then mark my words, elf," Marlow leaned towards the enchanter, a menacing expression upon his features, "I will make your life a living hell. I cannot believe you would disrespect me so as to know follow through with my request. If you will not do this, then I shall do it instead. As soon as day breaks tomorrow, I will go to see the Knight Captain. Surely she will be more…agreeable." And with those words, Marlow grasped his sons hands and stormed from the enchanters garden.

* * *

Tears streamed down her face as she hid in the shadows, listening in on her husbands request of the Enchanter Orisino. _How dare he? She is not but a week old, and already he seeks to do whatever it takes to gain rank in the nobility, even if it is his daughter who suffers?_ _If it weren't for me, he wouldn't have the power he has now! My dear daughter._ Phyllida glowered at his retreating form as he rushed out of the garden, her maternal instincts warring with the love she had fer her husband. As she stepped away from the alcove, she glanced at the elf.

"What can we do? I do not want to see her made tranquil."

Orisino shook his head, "Nor I, dear lady. When your husband sleeps tonight, return with your daughter. In the meantime, I will look into what we can do to ensure her safety."

Phyllida nodded, and then bowed her head in respect to her former enchanter, as she had been a part of the circle prior to her marriage, and quickly left the garden, her mind focused on her daughter.

* * *

Later that night, as promised, the Lady Dumar returned, her daughter tucked safely in her arms. Upon arriving at the enchanter's estate, she had been directed to go the Enchanter's study. Memory led her footsteps through the estate, as not a thing had changed in the years that had passed. When she reached Orisino's study, she found it littered with open tomes, papers, herbs, and used lyrium bottles, with the enchanter sitting in the midst of the room, a pondering expression on his face. He glanced up as soon as he heard her enter.

"Have you found anything?" she asked of him as she glanced about worriedly, her fingers fidgeting at the fabric swathed around her child.

The elf grimaced as he responded, "Yes, but you will not like it."

"Well what is it?"

"We must send her through the fade."

Shock crossed Phyllida's face. "I will not have my daughter sent to the fade. How can you even suggest such a thing?!"

"Phyllida," the enchanter said, raising his hands before him in a placating gesture. "I said through, not to. We can send her through the fade to a safer place. There she can live a life without the worries of becoming tranquil, and she would be free from the grasp of the circle."

"Truly?" she asked, hope creeping into her voice. "You think she would be safe? And loved for?"

Orisino laid a calming hand on her shoulder, peering down at the young baby's face, as bright brown eyes stared up towards him. "I would not lie to you, dear friend. Though we should do this soon, before the sun rises, lest your husband suspect. Do you remember how to open a tear?" Phyllida nodded. "Good, I will need your help in doing this. I would suggest saying your goodbyes while you can."

And so Orisino began to clear the center of the room, as they would need it to perform the ritual, and Phyllida went to the corner of the room. She gently rocked her babe, humming a soothing tune, whispering sweet hopes and wishes for her beautiful daughter, and as she did so, she felt as if her heart was being ripped in two. And as it ripped, she knew, there would be no forgiving her husband.

Sooner than she'd have liked, Orisino hesitatingly approached her, "It's time." She nodded, tears trailing down her cheeks as she approached the center of the room, clutching her daughter to her breast for what she knew would be the last time. After a moment, she placed the child where the enchanter indicated, tucking a small slip of parchment in the folds of the blanket that swathed her child, and lovingly traced the face of her daughter, trying her best to memorize her face.

Beautiful brown eyes blinked owlishly up at her as she and Orisino began to chant and in a bright flash of green light, she disappeared.

* * *

She had been snuggled closely with her husband as they watched that evening's news on the telly, curled up to his side in hopes of leaching some of his warmth, when she heard the loud crack of what could only be compared to as thunder. But this couldn't have been just thunder, it shook the house, and startled both her and her husband alike, and it appeared to come from the front of their home. She looked up at her husband with an alarmed expression before they both sprung from the couch and raced towards the door.

"Do you see anything, dear?" she asked of her husband, as they both peeked through their windows to their front lawn.

"You would have that it was an explosion, but I don't see any fire. How peculiar."

Her husband made to open their front door, and once he had down so, he'd gasped. "Love, come here."

"What is it, Phillip?" She approached the door to find her husband crouching, and in his arms was a bundle of cloth.

"It's…" He began, "It's a baby."

She scoffed. "Are you saying that that great clang of thunder that shook our very house came from a baby?"

He shook his head as he glanced down in awe of the child in his arms, "No, Jean. But she was on the porch. And she doesn't seem startled in the least."

"What person would do such a thing?" Jean asked, peeking over her husband's arms at the baby he was gently rocking. "She can't be more than a month old."

A small fluttering caught her attention from the corner of her eye, a small peace of paper seemed to be trying to escape on the wind. Jean quickly snatched it from the babe's swaddling blanket, and brought it into the light. There was but one line of script on the scrap of paper, but it was in no language she could understand. And then, before her very eyes, the script shifted, and formed one line in English.

 _"Her name is Hermione. Love her well."_


	2. Chapter 2: Meetings

It was the third day of school, and already she hated it with a passion. And for Hermione Granger, it took a lot to get her to hate anything. Her parents had promised it would be different, that going to a new school would mean new friends and fitting in. But no, it was the same here as it had been in the last three schools they had placed her in. Being new automatically put her on the outside of all of the groups, and her mind? Well that had a tendency to get her in to trouble. It's not that she hadn't tried to heed her parents' warnings; she had really tried to follow them. _Don't bring attention to yourself. Be nice to everyone. Try not to answer all of the questions in class. Stay away from the bullies._ She really had tried. But she was only seven years old, what was really to be expected?

Day one had ended with her losing her lunch allowance and the watch her mother had given her for her birthday the previous year simply for being on the wrong side of the playground. Hermione had also been on the receiving end of several glares after she had gone running to the teacher, pointing at the perpetrators with tears in her eyes. She had gotten her watch back, but it had been broken. Day two hadn't been much better, having had to spend a good portion of the day hiding out and rushing to class, doing her best to avoid the bullies that had gotten to her the day before. She had been good in her avoidance of them, but when the teacher began asking questions of her in class, they had all begun to snicker with each answer she got correct. It was only when her mother had picked her up that she had found out about the spit-wads that had dried and stuck to the back of her frizzy hair. It had taken then near on forty minutes that night to remove them all.

So by day three, she had already broken three of the four warnings her parents had given her. She had dashed into the school and to her desks, ran as quickly as she could to each of her classes, and kept to herself as well as she could. By the end of the day, Hermione had that she had made it through free of the bullies and their jeering, only to run straight into Billy Thompson, the leader of their little group, as she tried to run to her cubby in her home room. Falling to the floor, tears began to fall as a tirade of insults against her smartness, her hair, her clothes, and every little thing a boy could pick one crashed over her. It had seemed that she would have laid curled up on the floor forever, listening to the torrent of filth coming from the boy, until he had insulted her parents. That had been the last straw, and all thoughts of appeasing her parents' warnings went out the window as her fist smashed into Billy Thompson's nose.

And so, at the end of day three, Hermione had been escorted to her mum's car by her homeroom teacher, and had to standby as her teacher spoke with her mother. She'd received a stern talking to on the way home, and had pleaded with both her mother and father after dinner to let her stay home and be home schooled. The response she'd gotten had been less than what she wanted and as she listened to her mother mutter on about tuition payments, she realized that she was going to have to deal with this problem for as long as she could.

Emotions had away of getting away from her, and it was on this night, when her anger, frustration, sorrow, and disappointment were at their highest, that she had her first true dream. Young as she was, she didn't know any better, but when she grew older, she would soon know the difference between the stuttered, disjointed pattern of her normal dreams, and the smooth, sequential evenness of the true dreams. But on this night, she wasn't older, and she didn't know better. It was a night of great importance for the years to come, because it was the night that she'd found her first proper friends.

* * *

It was relaxing, this place, with no sounds of the city, no horns honking, no televisions blaring, and no shouts from the neighbor's house. Instead it was calm. The was a breeze what wound itself around her, jostling the curly strands of her hair as it swept by her and into the limbs of the trees near by. She could hear the gentle rustle of leaves as the branches moved with it, and could hear the soft gurgling of water of the creek that she was now sitting at. The sun her face made her skin delightfully warm, and she smiled as she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath while the light of the sun brought the lids of her eyes to a bright pink hue. Her toes crunched into the sand at her feet, and she sighed in the delight of it.

What she had not expected was the splashing that soon broke her reverie, followed soon after by childish giggles. With trepidation she opened her eyes, only to see three children frolicking about in the cool water, throwing waves of water at each other as best as they could. All had the same black wispy hair, and similar facial structure, leaving Hermione to believe that they were all siblings. Two of the children - one girl and one boy - looked to be close to her own age, while the other was obviously an older brother of theirs. She remained quiet, unsure of how her presence would be taken, as her history with meeting new children had left very much to be desired. So instead of standing, waving, and doing something else to make herself known, she sat as still and as quiet as she could manage.

She watched silently as the two younger siblings rushed the older boy, each taking hold of leg and grappling at him, rowdily attempting to make his knees lock and cause him to fall. Instead, they rather reminded Hermione of the monkeys she'd seen at the zoo, scrambling to try to reach the tallest branches that were their brother's arms. The young girl soon gave up sliding down to play in the water, while the juvenile boy clambered up to the teen's shoulders. The boy pulled at the teenager's hair, cackling maniacally, causing the teen to laugh heartedly as he awkwardly tried tickle his brother. Hermione watched with astonished eyes as the young girl had a globe of mud between her fingers, but instead of simply holding it, it was hovering between her hands. It was almost like a magic trick, like the magicians she had seen while at the fair the year previous with her parents. While the girl's older brother was distracted by his sibling's antics, the young girl pushed the globe out with a motion of her arms, causing it to fly through the hair and hit her elder brother right smack in the middle of his face. His expression of shock was so amusing that his siblings broke out into raucous laughter, and Hermione couldn't help but to join in.

Hermione quickly quieted however when the siblings stopped their play in the water, the eldest doing his best to wipe the mud from his face as they all turned to look at her. The girl jabbered excitedly at her, in a language she did not know, while the youngest boy offered her a cautious smile. Again, the girl said something in that foreign language, and the teen stepped forward, placing himself between Hermione and his siblings? Words came from his mouth, and she knew he had to be asking her something, but she had no way of knowing how to answer. She tilted her head curiously, as he repeated the same sequence of words. No, she did not know what he was saying, so she shook her head and shrugged. The young boy tugged at his brother's damp sleeve, muttering something up to him, to which the teen nodded, looking at Hermione cautiously.

The teen took a step forward, his hands held in a placating gesture, his tone soothing, as if she were a deer about to dart off. He took a deep breath, and with a wave of his hand, a stream of blue mist floated around her. He continued with his comforting words, unknown as they might have been, and so Hermione stayed still, despite her worries over the mist that surrounded her. After a few minutes where the mist simply formed a ring around her, the teen nodded his head, seeming to not see what he had been looking for, and disbanded the mist with a bright smile.

He stepped forward, bringing his hand in front of him in an offer of what she could only assume was a handshake. She timidly accepted his hand, much to the delight of his two younger siblings, who suddenly rushed forward, chattering excitedly. The teen gestured to himself, and spoke slowly, "Garrett." He then waved at his sister, "Bethany," and then to his younger brother, "Carver." _Names?_ She thought, thinking that they didn't sound so far off from names she had heard before. Garrett gestured to herself and cocked his head to the side, giving her a questioning glance. "Hermione," she responded with a great grin on her face. Again, he smiled brightly at her and nodded, as his siblings started to push them both back to the water, obviously intending to include her in their games. And so she spent the afternoon with her newfound friends, splashing and causing mischief in the stream.

* * *

Never before had she been so sad to awaken in her bed the next morning.


	3. Chapter 3: Frequecy

Short chapter this time. I figure shorter chapters will be easier for me to finish.

* * *

It was always after an extremely disappointing day that the dreams would come. She would have been bullied, or gotten something incorrect, or just something she hadn't liked would have happened, and only then would she dream. For a while, it was disheartening. She wanted to be able to see her new friends – Bethany, Carver, and Garrett – more often than she was. The only good part of it all was that when her day was bad, she knew she would get to see them.

The first few dreams, a few weeks apart, were always somewhere where she could relax and not worry about her bullies or bad luck. The river was her favorite place, because it was where they'd all met. The second-best place was small home in what Hermione eventually learned was called Lothering. The house, while rustic in comparison to what modern means she was used to, was charming, and better yet, it was where her new friends began to teach her, and she them. At first it was just words, sharing language as she knew it, trading words of English with words of Common. Communication was pieced together by their attempts, and soon they were easily able to share small stories and at least speak to one another.

The dreams became more frequent as months passed, and with them she learned more about the Hawkes, the family she had happened upon in her dreams. As they saw each other more often, they taught her their games, she showed them her own. She told them of her world, and her modern conveniences; they spoke of dragons, blights, magic, and the fade. Oh, the fade, such a thing couldn't surely be real. But in her childish delight she often ignored that fact, taking heed in Garrett's constant warnings of demons, while thoroughly enjoying her time in her dreams. If Garrett was right, her dreams were in the fade, or else they would never have met, but what meaning that had was too much for a young girl. He often spoke of magic, or how his sister and he both were mages, and how his father was teaching them, but also hiding them from the templars. She would often ask after why they would need to hide, but he would always tell her that it was not for a child to know. Pointing out Bethany's age in semblance to her own did nothing to get him to tell her.

In the summer of 1991, odd things started to happen around Hermione. Lights would come on by themselves. She could find a book just by thinking about it, it would simply be there. Cookies were easy to find, where otherwise they weren't normally – given her parents' rules against sweets given their professions as dentists. She could always find her missing socks, and was beginning to be able to find the easiest routes to avoid the bullies at school. It was around this time that a tall, older lady in a strange tartan outfit had come to see her parents. She had gone downstairs to find out when dinner was supposed to start, when her parents and the lady, whose name she found out was Professor McGonagall, sat her down to inform her that she was a witch. Dinner was late that night. And her dreams even later.

With equal parts excitement and fear, she rushed to the dreamscape Lothering, greeting Bethany and Carver exuberantly with news that they were the same. That she had magic, too. That they could be mages together. That she would get to go to a school for magic in the fall. While Bethany was excited at first, it soon morphed into anxiety as Garrett had overheard and was now worrying over young Hermione as well, as the sound of a school sounded very much like their Circles. Regardless of how much Hermione assured him that it was just school, and that she could go home at any time, he worried. By the end of the night, a plan was put in place. She was to undergo training each night with Garrett, to teach her the basics of magic, as well as how to protect herself in the fade. With this in mind, as soon as Hermione got her Hogwarts letter, she was ready to tackle her magic head on.


End file.
